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Mexxxxxxxxxxxxxxy

It’s always exciting when a drug is banned, but the recent announcement by the Home Office concerning the imminent banning of the former ‘legal high’ methoxetamine set unprecedented levels of excitement and confusion by making it a new kind of illegal.

Under the previous system, if the British Government wanted to ban a drug, they had to consult their gaggle of scientists, doctors and other assorted experts collectively known as the ACMD, ignore their views, sack them for objecting to being ignored, appoint a new panel and then do what they were always going to do by banning the drug anyway. This circumvented cumbersome bureaucracy, and also allowed ministers to transcend any remaining ties to objective reality by applying such bans to chemicals the existence, let alone the effects, of which had not yet been proven.

Methoxetamine, purportedly synthesised by the intentionally mysterious underground chemist ‘M’, has emerged in the past two years as a “bladder-friendly” alternative to ketamine, but is more widely known for raising the stupid-drug-name bar which everyone thought had peaked with “meow meow”, being dubbed “mexxy” and “roflcoptr”. Needless to say, the putative toxicology information presented to promote the drug is highly questionable, as should be obvious

More recently methoxetamine has got the British tabloid press frothing after its alleged involvement in the death of two people. Needless to say the postmortem revealed both had methoxetamine and alcohol in their blood at the time of death. At the time of writing, no move has been made to ban alcohol.

Methoxetamine is the first substance to be banned under what’s called a ‘temporary class drug order’, a new measure enshrined in legislation in November 201. Making a substance subject to an order effectively bans it for 12 months, offering the government the welcome opportunity to ban the banned drug all over again in a years’ time.

“Yes! Even more crimes to solve!”

This isn’t how they put it. In their words the introduction of an order is to allow time for the ACMD to perform tests and decide whether it should be permanently controlled. During this time the manufacture, supply and consumption of such a substance subject to an order, the effects and impact of which are necessarily unknown, is punishable by prison sentences up to 14 years and an unlimited fine, the current penalty imposed for supplying class B drugs such as amphetamines.

But perhaps after said testing period the ban might be lifted? Current Home Secretary Theresa May recently announced in somewhat less than neutral terms, an upcoming review of legislation concerning ketamine, stating that the review was prompted by “heightened public concern about the popularity and potential harms of ketamine” and considering the last major report into the legal status of a controlled substance resulted in cannabis being re-upgraded to a class B drug against the advise of the ACMD, it is looking unlikely that a radical rethink of drug-policy is taking place by our elected leaders in Westminster Palace.

This time the ACMD implicitly admit that methoxetamine appears to be more dangerous than ketamine and with the review of ketamine looking likely to result in an upgrading, the carefully charged words spoken at the start of the ban set the tone for when in 12 months time, methoxetamine is permanently controlled. Since ketamine was made a class C drug in 2006, its use has risen dramatically indicating that the ban has made no impact on use and has actively driven people onto what the ACMD believe is an even more harmful drug, methoxetamine. As such, the decision not to let methoxetamine remain legal will, at best, have no impact on trends of use and at worst drive users to increasingly unsafe substances.

This seems as good a time as ever to remind you that prior to his election, David Cameron actively spoke out against the absurdity of the war on drugs. I await his intervention on this matter imminently.

[This article was written for Synchronium.net by slicedmind, who runs an esoteric music blog here and, well, lets just say, owes me big time.].

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4 Responses to Mexxxxxxxxxxxxxxy

Another quality article. The way governments don’t work does make ya wonder, ahh who cares it’s just another dictatorship dressed up as a democracy, they’ll do what they want regardless of their own facts and science and I’m not really sure why, when evidently a straight ban does not achieve the required effect, merely provides the scaboids of Fleet Street with a headline to calm the panic and misled uneducated public (regards substances). At for 6 months and the next scare story and away we go again – for every substance banned, a new substance becomes available. Like the war on terror – that the west generated – it’s an unwinnable war. etc etc etc Anyway, I’ll look forward to the replacement ‘latest post’ when that becomes available, mums the word!

An absolutely fantastic article. While I don’t live in the UK, I follow all or your posts because we are having nearly all of the same issues here in America; the only difference being a slightly different flavor of political bullshit. Keep up the good work!

I think my views on this topic, also relate to my longer post on your ’10 reasons why’ topic.

I think the banning issue is a kne-jerk reaction to the media scandal about the unfortunate deaths. I won’t go on about I wonder how many people drowned due to alcohol…

MXE seems to be used as an example as the first RC to be banned under the new laws. It’s more about that, and making an example for the topic of legal highs as a whole, and a knee-jerk ban due to that alleged fatality. It certainly isn’t about clamping down on/stopping emerging/existing legal highs. If it’s about that, they certainly missed a lot of ’em.

I believe the Government is happy to sweep legal highs use under the carpet, as long as their isn’t a media scandal about one. Then if there’s a scandal/death, then this legislation is there, to ‘protect us’. For the rest, they’ll still be sold.

I don’t think MXE will be legal in a year. But I’m sure already, there’s a newer alternative.